Review

In these modern times we aren't left with many new industrial acts that are simply incredible. Ranging from EBM, to aggrotech, to pure industrial new bands, can’t seem to find their niche, capitalize and create that profoundly great album. For this reason alone we are left to hope and dream that our current juggernauts can pick up the slack and release a quality album when the time comes for them. Something tells me Rudy Ratzinger didn’t get that memo. His newest effort, Schrekk & Grauss is sadly 10 more tracks of uninspired, empty, electro-industrial songs that aside from the few seconds of sparse intelligence show nothing more than Rudy’s inevitable downslide.

Schrekk & Grauss is released a mere year after Siamese, which was released a year after Fuckit and so on all the way back to 2004. Before 2004, :wumpscut: releases were spaced out and therefore were more well thought out and better constructed than the current ones have been. The main problem with this album lies in the fact that it sounds like one giant song with a few interesting moments here and there. The album title and title track loosely translate to scary and horror, and if this is Rudy’s attempt at a move to the terror EBM or harsh EBM territory, consider it a failed attempt. While the title track is one of the best, if not the best song on the album. The rest of the songs just sound like normal :wumpscut: material.

As previously mentioned the title track “Schrekk Und Grauss” is the strongest song you’ll find in the first half. It has everything that Rudy is known for including the strong, heavy electro-industrial beats mixed with the distortion. The chorus of the song is what makes the song worth listening to. This is the closest thing on the album to harsh or terror vocals and when mixed with the high pitched sirens that squeal over the pounding, visceral beats, it makes for one of the best industrial songs of 2011. It’s almost as if he put all of his effort into creating the ultimate title track and lost any ambition he had for the rest of the album. The second half of the album is much more strong music wise also. Songs like “Wumpelstilz” and “Jiddish” have very good beats and samples built into them, but the vocal performance by Rudy leaves a lot of room for improvement. “Jiddish” for example, would have the propensity to become one of the albums strongest songs if it weren’t for the looped vocal track for six minutes. Instead it just becomes a mash of eerie samples mixed with dark electro beats and another wasted track.

It’s difficult to nail down what Rudy was aiming for with this release. With the peculiar album title it seemed like we might’ve been in for a more scary and exciting adventure, but nevertheless we weren’t, and here we stand with another lackluster :wumpscut: release for the books. It’s not such a disappointment that this album in particular wasn’t a success, the disappointment lies with the artist himself, and his decision to merely follow rather than to be the leader. Has Rudy just lost his concentration or has he lost it completely?

One of the other downfalls of the album is the song titles. Now I’m not one to usually gripe about such things but in this case they are just irritating and Rudy should’ve taken someone’s advice before he named the ninth track “Zombibikini”. The first half of the album is fine but it almost seems as if when it got to naming, oh, the second half of the five songs he couldn’t think of anything remotely creative.

Schrekk & Grauss is released a mere year after Siamese which was released a year after Fuckit and so on up until 2004.

All the way back to 2004

Before 2004 :wumpscut: releases were spaced out than a year and therefore were more well thought out and better constructed than the current ones have been

You could either say "were more spaced out" and drop the "a year" out of it, or go "were spaced out by more than a year"

lies in the fact that it sounds like one giant song with a few interesting minutes here and there.

Change minutes to moments

The second half of the album is much more strong music wise also.

Saying also implies a comparison (and in this case a good one) to what you were just talking about. But because you were just talking about terrible song names the sentence ends up not making any sense. Change it to "thankfully the musicianship of the second half makes up for...."

have very good beats and sample built

*samples

It’s not such a disappointment that this album in particular wasn’t a success rather that in the genre we suffer to see another one of the leaders stumble when they should be leading the way.

This whole sentence is a little iffy. I get what you're saying, but I think it should read more like: "It’s not such a disappointment that this album in particular wasn’t a success, the disappointment lies instead with the the artist himself, and his decision to merely follow rather than continue to be the leader" or some bollocks like that

Isn't the project's name technically :wumpscut:? I see that's the name you put in the actual review but not in the review title. Is that because of the way Sputnik files stuff?

Anyway, the points you raise are all very good but it's all marred by a lack of punctuation, most noticeably commas. Example: "Schrekk & Grauss is released a mere year after Siamese, which was released a year after Fuckit and so on all the way back to 2004." and a few typos and sentences that need to be fixed.

That and you talk about the second half of the album but it's never all too clear that at the beginning you were talking about the first half. It's a bit disconcerting. The end is also a bit messy. A good proofread and focusing your thoughts and this will be a very good review. Kinda sad that :wumpscut: is getting a neg. review since they've been a favorite act of mine, but hey, every good artist has a few bad tracks here or there, right?